Red

Revelatory red:
         The blood you shed;
so red, it shocks, the very nature by which it was poured out, to cleanse,
                                                 blood red to purify, to make as white as snow.
So beyond any human comprehension and so your words
                                                                            we wrote
and read in red, in Your Word, Your gift of Good News, the gift of sacrifice and red the wine
we pour and drink to bring us back, to remind us of that gift.
Lips
stained red on Mary Magdalene as she traded in false beauty, the painfully inadequate
                         mere promise of beauty she falsely
                                                                  felt with man, traded it in
                                                                  for the One and Only Man who could and
would see her true beauty, the beauty that He alone could truly give her.
Red, the rocks, the sun, the rose, the embellishments of Your creation, all pointing,
                                                                                                        all praising,
                                                                                                        all reflecting
Your glorious name.
Red, every tongue which will
confess, every knee raw that will surely bow, that stays kneeled in prayer, rubbed
raw, rubbed red for the healing, the safety found there.
Red, our hearts, when made of flesh, that yearn for Yours, our heart’s desire.
Red, the apple that was eaten that caused the red of rage that caused a world gone bad to
        try and eradicate all truth, all love.
        Those shades and shades of true love, the only importance, the true romance.
                    And red on fire, we for You when we truly see the way it’s meant to be.
But red the mocking of a hell that taunts us, that calls us in, robs us with its heat, its false
comfort promised here on earth.
Red, your eyes, wet from tears when we look away, when we see not your tears, but only
ours.
Red, a color of our celebration of Your birth, Your fame. A fame we, too often,
                                                          hide behind false reds of holly and suited bearded men.
The loss of red from Virgin Mary when she was one
of maybe too few who heard your call, who accepted that great honor, an honor veiled in
             the doubt and suspicion of this cynical world.
Red, a color of my flag, that once waved in honor of a freedom only You could bestow,
                                                                                                                but
now trampled on, because we’ve forgotten the One who gave it all, the price of true
freedom; not a country’s freedom but a world’s freedom if they will come, red eyed,
                 themselves,
                 to the cross where that red blood poured out and only lay it all down; see red.
                 Through the rage and through the pain came the beauty of a Savior,
                    of a resurrection and maybe there’s no red in Heaven.
                                                  Maybe it was left here for us, an entirely human color;
                                                    a revelatory
                                                       red.